Maximiliens

I heard about Maximiliens from a friend. (Thanks, Richard!) I was told it's a great place for Happy Hour and since I had never heard of it before, I decided to look it up online. Some of the things that caught my eye immediately from the website was the promising selection of happy hour drinks, but most fascinating to me was the 8 appetizers for $20 deal. I didn't know if I would like all of these app's, as it is a French restaurant (and I am usually not a big fan of French food), but it sounded fun just the same.

Fast Forward to Happy Hour Revolution last Friday at Maximilien: I was running late that day and I am thankful for three of our friends who went a tad early to select a table and hold down a spot until the rest of us could meet up. I must say, that having never been to Maximilien, I really didn't know what to expect other than what I had seen online and I was a bit anxious. As I made my way past the fish throwers at Pike Place Market, and entered the restaurant under the swanky, red neon Maximilien sign, my insecurities and doubts about the place were quickly erased.

It was a warm, though slightly cloudy evening and our friends chose a large table out on the patio. Nice work, guys. The view is amazing from the restaurant and the patio -- Elliott Bay at it's finest. We quickly ordered Happy Hour drinks: a margarita for me, a couple of happy hour martinis for Nikki and Morgan and the boys got a bucket of Stella Artois. We were joined by Sarkis and Daren shortly thereafter who partook in the bucket of beers. In fact, the HHR males drank Maximilien out of Stella and by their third bucket of beers, they had to move onto Hoegarten. Happy Hour was buzzing by this point as all of the patio tables were taken (about 12 tables, a larger patio than I expected) and during this time we began to order food. Oh, the food. This subject may need it's own paragraph...

We asked for two orders of the 8 app's for $20 and an order of oysters that were on happy hour priced at half-off. When the food came it was like a 'smorgasbord of loveliness'. First came the mussels in white wine and garlic. My absolute favorite. (I wish I would have taken a pic of my plate and all the mussel shells. It was loaded.) Along with the mussels, came the goat cheese and garlic mousse which sounded strange but was really just baguette croutons with a cheese spread. Yum. Another favorite at our table was the salmon pastry with mustard sauce. We even ordered a couple of extra of these salmon pastries for a low, low, happy hour price of $2.95. The rest of the 8 for $20 items were tarte flambe, chicken wings, mini croissants, fries (yes!), and tartines fromagere. These were all equally amazing, but I thought I might lose your interest describing each one, so check out the happy hour menu at maximilienrestaurant.com to get descriptions.


At this point, we were all in love with Maximilien. It even started to rain a bit and our server, Carlos, turned into "hero mode" and cranked open the awning to protect everyone from the rain. Well, everyone at our 12-deep table. The rest of the patio patrons had to go inside to escape the rain as their table umbrellas weren't protecting them as well. Thanks, Carlos!

You might think this is the end of a pretty fabulous Seattle Happy Hour. You would be mistaken. While the Happy Hour may have ended, the revolution continued down past the gum wall of the market (a few funny pics in-between) and onto Zig Zag Cafe. I was one of the newbies to this establishment and was quickly impressed by their service, good drinks (though we were too late for happy hour prices), and atmosphere. From what I remember, it was a great time here, and I will go back.

Things to note: as stated before, check out maximilienrestaurant.com for details, pics of the restaurant, and a complete look at their menus.

The bathroom at maximilien was amazing due to the slow, melodic, french music and cleanliness. We even took a picture because we liked it so much.

Good times.